


Day 7: Inspiration

by Fundelstein



Series: Cloti Fall Festival 2020 [7]
Category: Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cloti Fall Festival 2020, Discord: Final Heaven, F/M, Fetish, Podfic Welcome, Secrets, Writer's Block, Writers, past bullying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:40:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27652856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fundelstein/pseuds/Fundelstein
Summary: Day 7 of the Cloti Festival Week.Prompt:Softly my thoughts whispered invisible words. My mind was a calm chaos filled with reflections of you. I wanted to find myself and I did when I found you.- Perry Poetry
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, Zack Fair/Aerith Gainsborough
Series: Cloti Fall Festival 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974253
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	Day 7: Inspiration

Before he met her, before he really met her, he’d been having the worst writer’s block for weeks. He had no time for the pretty new neighbor who moved next door.

It took a lot of nerve to even get started on such a novel. Even under a pen name. _It can’t be t_ _h_ _at_ _h_ _ard. You already live t_ _h_ _e life._ _You’ve already penned short stories about this stuff._ _Now all you’ve got to do is put in words._ The first couple of chapters went alright. Then the main character and his love interest began to interact in earnest. Everything after that, everything he wrote, it all fell flat. Nothing but uninspired pulp and dreck.

He’s adrift at sea now. Cloud Strife is completely out of his depth.

He thinks this may have been a bad idea.

“ _Ha! You’re just scared, that’s all.”_

_Sephiroth taunted him over a shared bottle of wine. He sat in his usual leather armchair like some suave cartoon villain. The man was grinning, actually grinning at his misery._

_“Scared?” Cloud was both confused and offended._

_“You’re a great writer and all, and I love your books,” he replied. “But I think… you’ve never truly put your all into it before. You keep holding back a part of yourself. Like it’s a dirty secret.” He pinched his glass, twirling and shifting his wine. “Well, in this case, it is a dirty secret. Too you, that is. And your brain won’t let you cut loose. You’re afraid to express yourself. You’re afraid to be seen.”_

_“Afraid to be seen?” Cloud snorted while taking a sip. “My publishers know I’m trying to write it. They’ll see it.”_

_“And if you write that novel, they won’t just see the prose. They’ll see you. You can chalk off some of your knowledge to ‘extensive research’… but any editor worth their salt? They’ll see your feelings, Cloud. And that’s scary enough for you.”_

_Cloud stared at him, his mind somewhere between denial and “what the hell?”_

_“Not that I blame you. You have been burned before, right_? _”_

Sephiroth is right. Painfully, accurately, infuriatingly right.

The man doesn’t have a doctorate in psychology for nothing.

Cloud hasn’t forgotten his first burn. He once nursed a mutual crush on a co-worker, back when he was another corporate slave. He thought she liked him enough. So he tested her; he exposed his secret, burgeoning hobby. It didn’t go well, so he took her rejection in stride. He was prepared for that. He didn’t expect being outed to the entire department. Naïve of him, in retrospect.

In the wake of that bombshell, nasty “presents” and threatening notes appeared in his desk space. He had to play fast and loose with his lunch breaks. On the bright side, that’s how he met Zack. Then his crush’s new boyfriend got the bright idea of trying to pummel him in the hall. The moron got fired. Cloud switched departments. He quit six months later and went full time writer.

Lesson learned. He’s stuck to his own crowd ever since.

That one blunder left an ugly mark on him. And boy does it show.

Cloud is sitting in a coffee shop, trying to write his next novel, and he’s totally useless. He can’t write a single sentence without looking over his shoulder.

_Don’t be stupid. No one’s got microscopic vision._

Cloud knows who he is. And he revels in it. The only problem: he doesn’t know how to be who he is. Not while everyone was watching. The world is a cruel place.

After a dozen, dead-end paragraphs, Cloud throws in the towel. _This isn’t a writer’s block. It’s a writer’s clog!_ This is stagnant frustration.

He finishes his dirty chai latte and packs it all up. He drops a couple of gil in the tip box on his way out.

On the way home, he stops by Zack’s place to reclaim his things. Instead of Zack, he’s greeted by Aerith at the door. Her lips are painted blood red, and she’s wearing a slinky, black boho dress. Zack’s shoes are sitting at the front door, but he’s nowhere in sight. They must be in the middle of a scene.

Lucky Zack.

“Came for my gear,” he told her.

“Oh that!” Aerith cackles devilishly. She vanishes into the apartment, then comes back with a fancy shopping bag.

“Thanks for letting us try ‘em out,” she chirps. “We totally loved it! Zack went online and ordered us a set! Oh, and I made sure to sanitize them.”

Cloud snickers. “Glad you guys enjoyed it.”

A grin slithers on her face. “Find yourself the right partner one of these days. Then _you_ can enjoy it more too.”

_Easier said than done, Aerith. Easier said than done._

They say their goodbyes, and he leave her to it.

He heads on home with the train.

Stargazer Heights is a beautiful sight.

If only it was inspiring.

He walks up to the second floor, carrying all of his goods. _Maybe I’ll watch a couple of movies_ _again_ _._ _The new ones._ He digs into his pocket for his keys. _Ah, that probably won’t help. They’ll be fun to watch though…_

Someone rushes up and slams into to him. The shopping bag slips from his grip. It falls to the ground with an echoing thunk and tips over, spilling out the contents.

Cloud panics and swoops down to stuff it back in.

But it’s too late.

“Oh God! Crap! I am sorry.” The pretty, black-haired neighbor drops to her knees and grabs for one of his things. “I’m sorry. Here, let me...”

She freezes solid.

In dangles in her hand. A leather bondage harness set, complete with metal chains and handcuff restraints. On her right, there’s a cat-o-nine tails. On her left is a spool of shibari robe.

Silence.

His neighbor says nothing. The leather gear keeps dangling in her grip. Then slowly, and very awkwardly, they meet each other’s gaze.

She stuffs the harness back into her bag. The spell breaks, and he grabs the robe. She avoids looking him in the face and hands over the cat-o-nine tails. They both hop to their feet.

The neighbor smiles with a laugh. Her wine colored eyes twinkle in amusement. “Hmm… have a nice evening.”

She breezes right past him and makes a jog the stairs. Cloud watches her retreating back, just now realizing that she’s wearing exercise clothes.

And then she’s gone.

Cloud stands there, blinks a few times.

He slips into his apartment and kicks off his shoes. He trudges to his writer’s office and dumps his computer bag on the ground. Then he melts into his favorite chair. His face is quiet, but his mind is going off at a thousand miles per hour.

She saw it all, and nothing happened. A complete stranger got a peak at his dirty little secret, and his world is still spinning.

No, it hadn’t been spinning at all. It’s finally begun to spin!

She was playful, but she wasn’t rude. She was shocked, but wasn’t disgusted.

She even looked (does he dare say it?) intrigued. What kind of questions were going through her head? What kind of questions were going through her head right now?

In his mind’s eye, he sees a black haired girl running through the park, fantasizing about her mysterious neighbor and his dark proclivities. She finds him amusing, intriguing… vulnerable. She wonders what other secrets she can pry from his head…

Cloud saddles up in front the desktop athis writer’s desk. He heads to his cloud drive and scans the first few chapters…. including his failure of a fourth and fifth. Then he tosses it all into a reject file with extreme prejudice.

Time to start over.

He crackles his knuckles. His fingers hover over the keys.

“Okay then. Here we go.”

At five o’clock in the morning, he makes himself go to sleep. Zack’s been lecturing him about his health.

He feels, what’s the word for this?

“Calm.”

Yeah, that’s the word. Calm.

Three days later, he comes back from an outing with his friends.

The pretty neighbor is leaning against the rail, looking out onto the streets. When she looks at him, coming her way, he knows she’s been waiting for him.

There she is. She’s right in front of him, right before his eyes. His new muse.

_Is it creepy that I’m calling her my muse now?_

“Uh… excuse me.” She’s avoiding his eyes again, but she scrambles for something in her bag. She takes out a book. I read the title:

SM 101: A Realistic Introduction

Oh.

“Uh, I’ve been reading this,” she says, “and I think I’m way out of my league here. Can you, um give me some pointers?”

She looks down both ends, in case anyone’s coming.

He stare at her for a moment and represses the urge to grin. That might scare her off. Time to take control of the situation. He is a dom, and this is a newcomer is asking for guidance. He has a duty now.

“S or M?” he asks.

“Huh?”

“Are you an S or are you an M?”

The poor thing turns red in the face. “I’m not sure yet.”

Cloud nods. He turns toward the door.

“Would you like to come in?” he asks.

She blinks. “Oh… I..”

_Idiot! You don’t even know her!_

“Or would you rather go to a café?” he offers. “There’s a nice one up the street. Stays open ‘til midnight.”

She perks up. “Yeah, that makes more sense.”

They leave the apartment building. He leads

“Say, my name’s Tifa. Tifa Lockhart.” she asks. “What’s yours?”

“Cloud. Cloud Strife.”

“Ah… and are an S or an M?”

He smiles. “I’ve been an S all my life.”

And with that, he lets her waltz right into his world.


End file.
